Egypt/ 5.1 General legislation

5.1.7 Copyright provisions

Article 8 of the Cultural Convention endorsed by the Arab League Council on 27 Nov. 1945 stipulates: "each member of the Arab League shall formulate and publish a legislation to protect literary, scientific and artistic property".

On May 1964, the Arab League Council endorsed ALESCO charter and concluded the Arab Cultural Unity Covenant. Article 21 of this covenant stipulates: "each state party shall formulate a legislation to protect literary, scientific and artistic property for all works produced in these fields in each Arab League country".

Thus each Arab country is obliged under the agreements signed in this field, namely the Cultural Convention of 1945 and the Arab Cultural Unity Covenant, to issue a copyright law (more than half of Arab countries have indeed issued copyright laws).

The first copyright law known in the Arab World was the Ottoman Copyright Law issued in May 1910.

In Egypt, the first copyright legislation was Law 345 issued in June 1954 and this law was amended by virtue of Law 14 of 1968, Law 34 of 1975, Law 38 of 1992, Law 29 of 1994 and finally by Copyright Law 82 of 2002.

Article 140 of Law 82 stipulates: "literary and artistic work of authors shall be protected and this protection shall include the title of the work if it is original".